


Lonely Signal

by NanakiBH



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Emotionally Repressed, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Melodrama, Minor Violence, Reconciliation, Resurrection, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 05:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20168740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: Someone was missing.





	Lonely Signal

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place riiight after KH3.
> 
> I can't believe Xemnas is just fukkin GONE. I ain't havin' that. Get back here, big boy!!!

By the time the sun descended below the waves, the party had dispersed. On the tree that bent toward the water, Kairi remained, looking out toward the sky, staring steadfastly as if simply waiting would have rewarded her with the sight of the person she wanted to see. Her faith in Sora was admirable, but the sight of her alone was painful for anyone who understood her feelings.

For Isa, it gave him a feeling he didn't quite understand. It tasted a little salty, but there was no sweetness.

He realized that Lea must have understood how she felt. He saw the echo of a similar pain reflected in Lea's eyes as he watched her. That pathetic look on his face... It'd probably always been there. In the past, it made Isa angry. An expression like that didn't belong on Lea's face. Such strong feelings for someone else didn't belong there.

He'd been so foolish...

With eyes blinded by jealousy, he saw only Lea's feelings and ignored his own – feelings that weren't so different. The way Lea felt about Roxas and Xion was the same way he felt. It hurt, watching someone drift away, seeing them walk away to a place where he couldn't follow. It would have been nice if that painful feeling left with the abandonment of his jealousy, but it was still there, wringing out his heart.

Surrounded by people, he still felt alone.

He'd been left.

Maybe, he thought, his problem had never been with them. There was a part of him that begged for attention, that wanted to hear the praise of someone. Even when they smiled at him, even when they laughed, that part of him remained restless, waiting for something that never came.

He was staring into an unintrudable distance, yet he was uncertain what it was he was waiting for.

He just wanted to feel at ease.

Eventually, even Kairi left. He wouldn't have blamed her if she'd wanted to stay there the whole night, as unreasonable as that would've been. It was unusual for him, but that was the type of mood he was feeling.

Xion was the one who crossed the bridge, interrupting the atmosphere that felt too fragile for any of the rest of them to touch. Maybe it was because the two of them shared a special connection... Xion seemed to know that Kairi would be alright.

Sora was going to be alright, too. Something made Isa feel sure of it.

He kind of hated that.

He hated how, for some reason, certain people seemed indestructible. That might have just been another one of those unsightly feelings that dwelled in his heart. Sora didn't deserve that. He was good. He was just good. That was the kind of person he was.

But what about the people who weren't like Sora...? What about the people who still thought horrible things despite themselves?

Axel was leaving. He wanted Isa to go with them.

He asked what was wrong, and Isa couldn't tell him.

Awful.

He fought to close the distance between them, but he couldn't bring himself to cross it. As much as it annoyed him to even admit it to himself, he wasn't as brave as Roxas and Xion. It was no wonder they'd taken his place. No matter what Lea had to say about it, that was the truth. Because he was always hesitating, they'd stepped into the distance ahead of him. He'd been irresponsible.

If he didn't open his mouth, he was afraid that the distance would keep growing farther until all three of them were out of his reach.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't admit what made him hesitate because he didn't want to hear it with his own ears. Like always, he would have rather become miserable than admit something he felt ashamed of. But it wasn't like he had a choice...

He told Lea he wanted to stay there for a little longer by himself.

Even if he told him what he was waiting for, it wouldn't have mattered. The story had already ended, but his chapter's resolution was missing. He was going to feel restless and unsatisfied forever.

Because they were friends, Lea chose to trust him and allowed him to stay there on his own.

Night rolled in faster than the waves. It was completely dark before he knew it. The light of the moon rested gently on the sand and his shadow stretched out behind him, reaching toward the other side of the shore. It was a very beautiful, picturesque scene, and it would have touched his heart had he not felt so restless. With the way he felt, it was hard to find an appreciation for anything.

He sighed and immediately felt wrong for interrupting the night's silence.

Standing there wasn't going to solve anything, but he didn't know what else he was supposed to do. Even the sound of the waves couldn't help him. It passed his ears and traveled into the dark.

When he was with the others, he felt out of place, but he felt silly staying behind by himself. Part of him wished he'd gone with them, but that same part also knew that nothing would have been different if he had. There was no winning. It made him happy that they accepted him, but he was greedy; his heart was still hungry for something that they couldn't give him. He wished he could have been content with what he had.

One thing was certain: He was going to have to leave eventually.

Deciding for that to be sooner than later, Isa took his eyes away from the waves and turned. As he did, something caught his attention from the corner of his eye.

There seemed to be another man on the other side of the beach, standing near the shoreline. He was staring at the sky, but he turned toward Isa when he noticed him looking his way.

Isa didn't know what he'd been expecting.

It was supposed to remain unresolved, he thought.

He didn't know what he was supposed to feel if he got what he wanted.

One more chance to say the things he had to say...

What was there to say...?

Clenching his fists at his sides, Isa approached him, a thousand thoughts warring in his head between each long step. He was... Angry. Scared. For so many reasons. Despite wanting to see him so badly, he also wanted to disappear, run away. He held it down and forced himself forward, telling himself to be as brave as his two new friends.

He had to make sure he wasn't just a trick of the light.

“Xemnas.”

The other man bowed his head slightly, shadows obscuring his features. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. His body language also said nothing.

“What are you doing here?” Isa asked, stopping close enough, a safe distance away, out of arm's reach.

With the slightest movement of his head, Xemnas looked around himself. He was still wearing his black coat. It made him a familiar sight, but seeing it again made Isa feel uneasy. The Organization was most certainly dead, as Xemnas most certainly should have been as well.

“This is where I-...” Xemnas stopped himself, finding something displeasing with his choice of words. “No. This is where Xehanort was born. And this is where Terra met that boy, Riku. I have no memories of my own here.”

If he had memories from Xehanort and Terra, then he was still very much Xemnas. Isa hadn't realized how much Xemnas had inherited from them until he met the separate two for himself. In the Organization, he thought that Xemnas seemed more like a Nobody than the rest of them, but he later realized that the elements that influenced him were just subtle.

He'd always been stoic, his eyes expressionless. He'd been able to say the most terrible things without even blinking.

Isa hated everything about him, but. He couldn't hate him. It was impossible to hate someone who was barely even a person.

That was the thing he hated most.

“That doesn't exactly answer the question,” he said, staring ahead at him, fixing him with a stare. If he looked away for even a second, he was afraid that he was going to let him disappear.

“I am unsure what brought me here. I do not recall where I was even a moment ago. My memory ends where my battle with Sora ended.”

“You're a Nobody. Xehanort's Nobody. If he's dead, then...”

Then he should have been gone, too. There was no reason for him to have been there, unless, like Roxas, he also...

“After all that time... After that tremendously foolish plot of mine...” He slowly raised his hands and looked down at his gloved palms, flexing his fingers as if testing their realness. “Despite the grandeur of my failure, I have somehow obtained what it what it was I so desperately sought – what I do not deserve. Although my predecessor has vanished from this world, I have obtained a heart that is my own. Thus... I remain.”

He'd always had such a slow, deliberate way of speaking. That hadn't changed. Isa found himself hanging on to every one of his words, feeling their weight stacking up upon his heart.

“With this heart, I can now feel emotion, but there is only one emotion I understand.” Xemnas put his hands down and looked up, the moonlight revealing the sadness in his eyes. “It was someone's loneliness that called me here.”

Isa looked away. If looking away meant that Xemnas would have disappeared, then that would have been fine. He didn't want to see him anymore.

“That's... foolishness.”

Sadness? Loneliness?

What had Xemnas ever understood of those things?

“Don't make me laugh,” he bit out.

“Would it be a mistake for me to assume that you also regret the time we took for granted, Saïx?”

“That's not my name. I'm not the person you knew anymore.” As if there were anything about their partnership he could have taken for granted. All he remembered of their time together was a beleaguering feeling of anxiety that still clung to him long after the fact. Any moment of fondness he felt for him was a moment of weakness. “I'm... no longer someone you can use.”

The person in front of him was surely Xemnas...

But something was different.

As soon as such strong words left Isa's mouth, he still expected to be violently reprimanded by the man who used to be his superior. Instead, the sadness in Xemnas's eyes seemed to deepen. He barely reacted, as if he didn't even know how to process the resentment in the words Isa gave him.

“How may I atone for my actions? I am certain an apology would not be sufficient.”

Of course it couldn't be that simple. Even hearing him make such a careless suggestion made Isa's blood boil.

He didn't think twice.

He grabbed Xemnas by the front of his coat and punched him in the face. Xemnas, as sturdy as ever, reacted with little more than a groan. Isa was annoyed that his fist probably hurt more than Xemnas's face.

It made him laugh.

Hitting him hadn't made him feel better. Hitting him again wouldn't have helped, either. That was the wrong direction. If he kept on, he would have just been hurting himself.

“I must be stupid,” he muttered.

He released him and stepped back. He looked up and watched as Xemnas gingerly touched his cheek, analyzing the feeling, taking note of the pain, searching for the meaning in it. The fact that he didn't understand something so simple was frustrating. Isa wanted him to hurt. He thought that was what he deserved for everything he'd put them through – for everything he'd put him through.

But he was pitiful like a child. Hitting him just seemed cruel.

“I can already tell... You've changed, too. Probably in an even more significant way than I have.” He almost wished he could have been like Xemnas, ignorant of his own pain. “I'm just annoyed. I'd like to be mad at you, but the 'you' I want to be mad at doesn't seem to exist anymore. With the way you are now, you probably wouldn't repeat those same mistakes, would you?”

“I wish that I could refer to them 'mistakes'. As differently as I feel now, I still recall who I used to be. I felt no remorse for my actions. I used you, and as you suffered, I felt nothing.” Placing a hand over his chest, he exhaled slowly and looked into Isa's eyes. “From the very depths of my heart, I'm sorry.”

Maybe that was enough.

Xemnas had a brand new heart, and that heart that knew nothing was being filled with loneliness, sadness, and remorse.

Isa wanted him to hurt. If those were the only feelings Xemnas knew, then he had to be feeling an immense hurt. And that was enough. Even just a taste of it was enough as long as it helped him to understand how he'd hurt him.

“Stop. There's no need for you to go that far,” Isa said. “You're already... You've already become who I wished you could be.”

That was what he didn't want to admit. It made him feel pathetic.

A stronger person might have walked away and denied Xemnas the chance to redeem himself, but Isa couldn't bring himself to do that. He'd been waiting there just to see him, and Xemnas's heart must have noticed. Just being noticed by him... That simple act alone was the most kindness he'd ever received from him. And, at that moment, even if it wasn't much, it was all he wanted.

He took a step forward.

He lifted a trembling hand and placed it on Xemnas's chest, felt his heart beating through the black coat, its rhythm gently reaching toward his palm.

“Isa...”

“I kind of always wanted to hear you say my real name,” he said with a bitter smile.

One of Xemnas's large hands closed around his, holding it.

“If it is what would make you happy, I would gladly say your name for as long as you could bear to hear it.”

Was that allowed?

A happy end for both of them?

It was his choice.

He had to follow his friends' example and seize what he wanted.

“You don't have to do anything special to make it up to me,” Isa said. “Just... Stay.”

The feeling in Xemnas's eyes...

It was a lot of things. Isa couldn't put a single name on it, but he felt it, too.

He was pulled into an embrace, held securely against Xemnas's chest. It was difficult for Isa to keep himself together. He took in a deep breath and slowly raised his arms to return the embrace, accepting it. In the past, he imagined being held that way by him, but he never expected it to become a reality. Xemnas had been vacant. And Isa had made himself distant from everyone. Yet... There they were. Close enough to touch.

“How are we supposed to explain this to everyone?” Isa mused, letting his forehead tiredly rest against Xemnas's shoulder.

“You could be honest. It was your heart that beckoned my heart back to this place.”

His suggestion made Isa grimace. “Yeah... I can't say something like that. I'm going to have to come up with something that sounds less embarrassing.”

Xemnas's brows came together in confusion. “Why not tell them the truth? It seems like good things happen when you communicate your feelings.”

“Oh, this is unsettling.” He never expected that he would be receiving communication advice from _Xemnas_. “I'll be honest with you, at least – especially when it seems like you need to learn a thing or two about what it's like to have a heart. However... When it comes to Lea and the others, I still need some time. You'll understand eventually. I know I shouldn't be afraid to tell them the things I feel, but... It's not that easy for me. Unlike you, I'm not starting from a blank slate. I... have some things I need to work through.”

There was something liberating about being able to say even that much. He had no reason to worry about Xemnas's impression of him. It was nice.

With some reluctance, Isa separated himself from Xemnas.

“It's late. We should head back. If they want to know why you're here... Maybe they'll figure it out for themselves.”

Xemnas gave a soft laugh at that.

Feeling his face getting hot, Isa turned and started walking, but it didn't take long before he was looking over his shoulder to make sure that Xemnas was still there.


End file.
